My writing process has evolved throughout my academic career. Before I publish anything, it goes through many self edits. I have learned that I am best able to edit my own work when I write the original piece and then walk away from it for at least twenty-four hours. This time gives me a little distance from the piece allowing me to edit my own work and to be critical. If I try to edit something immediately after writing it, I am too close to the piece and I have difficulty seeing my own errors. This was the process I used for the Three Definitions Assignment. I feel it was successful. My document went through more than a dozen revisions before I published it on the Scribbler’s team forum. This includes switching terms three times before I found one term fitting the purpose of the assignment. I originally selected to define the term liabilities. After working with this for some time I found that the term was too narrow and did not allow me to explore it in four different ways. I later switched my term to asset, but I found asset, liabilities, and equity were all connected. After realizing the balance sheet is what connects them, I was able to proceed with writing the definitions.
When I completed the document, I left it for a couple of days before returning to edit the piece. After some time away I was able to re-read my piece and discover that it needed a section explaining the parts which make up the whole. This provided clarity to the definition by explaining all the pieces making up a balance sheet. I also found adding a glossary helped to provide clarity for a reader, such as my chosen audience/situation in the assignment, who may not know some of the financial terms needed to understand the term balance sheet.
The peer review process in this situation was difficult from my other experiences because we did not speak with our peers or seek clarification about meaning in their document. We also do not know our peers and I think we were all extra cautious of offending the author. This was valuable as it ensured that we kept a professional and positive tone. It also meant that we took the writing piece at face value and there was no bias involved. If we had spoken to our peer, or met with them in person, they may have been able to explain why they made a certain choice. An example of this would be that in the original document I included my parenthetical definition in my situation/audience section. As it was not specifically labelled, my peer reviewer did not recognize it as a parenthetical definition. Although it was included in the original piece, I appreciated the note that it was not easily identifiable.
When I was editing my peer’s work, I found that it was very concise, and lacking a conclusion. It needed another section to tie the thoughts together and to explain how the parts work together. Editing was a balancing act of ensuring I was thorough but trying not to be too picky. One example of this was the note I made to my peer about their graphic. The one graphic included in their piece had four arrows on it but only two labels. I recommended adding labels for all four parts, but also noted that one of the arrows pointed to the wrong part of the heart because it was too short. This was an area I needed to consider the importance of mentioning. My peer had included a diagram of a heart and had drawn arrows on it and labelled the right and left ventricle. This was important to his definition, but the one arrow extended to the heart wall rather than all the way into the ventricle. Most people have basic knowledge of the structure of the heart from science in elementary school, so I felt this detail may be too picky. Nevertheless, in a professional document meant to clarify something, details and specifics are important, so I decided to include this note.
Through the editing process I learned that my personal editing skills have improved. The original piece went through many rounds of self-editing before it was published on our team forum for peer review. Still, my peer was able to offer suggestion that I had not thought of which added clarify to the document. One example of this is where my peer pointed out the redundancy in my document. I had repeated the description of a balance sheet being a form of double entry bookkeeping multiple times. Thanks to this note I was able to analyze the document further and remove one of the references to double entry bookkeeping.
Through this process I found different people face different challenges when writing. While some have trouble being concise in their writing, others are too concise, often failing to convey the full meaning.
Works referred to in this blog:
Eng 301- Glen Kavaliunas – Three Definitions Assignment
Peer Review of Three Definitions Assignment by Money
Eng 301 – Glen Kavaliunas – Revised Three Definitions Assignment